The Ivy Bridge Preview: Core i7 3770K Tested
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 6, 2012 8:16 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Core i7
- Ivy Bridge
The Lineup
Intel will initially launch quad-core SKUs on the desktop. Ivy Bridge will be branded as Intel's 3rd generation Core microarchitecture and use model numbers below 3800. The 3800 - 3900 series are reserved for Sandy Bridge E for the time being, while the 2000 series refers to last year's Sandy Bridge parts. Just like we saw with Sandy Bridge, Ivy will be available in fully unlocked (K-series), partially unlocked (any part with Turbo support) and fully locked (anything without Turbo support) SKUs.
What we know about the lineup today is summarized in the table below:
| Processor | Core Clock | Cores / Threads | L3 Cache | Max Turbo | Intel HD Graphics | TDP | Price |
| Intel Core i7 3960X | 3.3GHz | 6 / 12 | 15MB | 3.9GHz | N/A | 130W | $990 |
| Intel Core i7 3930K | 3.2GHz | 6 / 12 | 12MB | 3.8GHz | N/A | 130W | $555 |
| Intel Core i7 3820 | 3.6GHz | 4 / 8 | 10MB | 3.9GHz | N/A | 130W | $285 |
| Intel Core i7 3770K | 3.5GHz | 4 / 8 | 8MB | 3.9GHz | 4000 | 77W | $332 est |
| Intel Core i7 3770 | 3.4GHz | 4 / 8 | 8MB | 3.9GHz | 4000 | 77W | $294 est |
| Intel Core i5 3570K | 3.4GHz | 4 / 4 | 6MB | 3.8GHz | 4000 | 77W | TBD |
| Intel Core i5 3570 | 3.4GHz | 4 / 4 | 6MB | 3.8GHz | 2500 | 77W | TBD |
| Intel Core i5 3550 | 3.3GHz | 4 / 4 | 6MB | 3.7GHz | 2500 | 77W | TBD |
| Intel Core i5 3470 | 3.2GHz | 4 / 4 | 6MB | 3.6GHz | 2500 | 77W | TBD |
| Intel Core i5 3450 | 3.1GHz | 4 / 4 | 6MB | 3.5GHz | 2500 | 77W | TBD |
| Intel Core i5 3330 | 3.0GHz | 4 / 4 | 6MB | 3.2GHz | 2500 | 77W | TBD |
| Intel Core i7 2700K | 3.5GHz | 4 / 8 | 8MB | 3.9GHz | 3000 | 95W | $332 |
| Intel Core i7 2600K | 3.4GHz | 4 / 8 | 8MB | 3.8GHz | 3000 | 95W | $317 |
| Intel Core i7 2600 | 3.4GHz | 4 / 8 | 8MB | 3.8GHz | 2000 | 95W | $294 |
| Intel Core i5 2500K | 3.3GHz | 4 / 4 | 6MB | 3.7GHz | 3000 | 95W | $216 |
| Intel Core i5 2500 | 3.3GHz | 4 / 4 | 6MB | 3.7GHz | 2000 | 95W | $205 |
Unlike the initial Sandy Bridge launch, both fully and partially unlocked Ivy Bridge parts will ship with Intel HD 4000 graphics - although that's still reserved for the high-end on the desktop. I am also seeing movement towards removing core-count restrictions on turbo frequencies. Today max turbo is defined in most cases by the highest frequency you can reach with only one core active. I would not be surprised to see Intel eventually move to a setup where max turbo can be reached regardless of number of active cores and just base it on current power consumption and thermal conditions.
Chipset Support
Ivy Bridge uses the same LGA-1155 socket as Sandy Bridge. Provided there's BIOS/UEFI support from your board maker, you can use Ivy Bridge CPUs in older 6-series motherboards. Doing so won't give you access to some of the newer 7-series chipset features like PCIe Gen 3 (some 6-series boards are claiming 3.0 support), native USB 3.0 (many 6-series boards have 3rd party USB 3.0 controllers) and Intel's Rapid Start Technology.
| Chipset Comparison | ||||||||
| Z77 | Z75 | H77 | Z68 | P67 | H67 | |||
| CPU Support |
IVB LGA-1155 |
IVB LGA-1155 |
IVB LGA-1155 |
SNB/IVB LGA-1155 |
SNB/IVB LGA-1155 |
SNB/IVB LGA-1155 |
||
| CPU Overclocking | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | ||
| CPU PCIe Config |
1 x16 or 2 x8 or 1 x8 + 2 x4 PCIe 3.0 |
1 x16 or 2 x8 PCIe 3.0 |
1 x16 PCIe 3.0 |
1 x16 or 2 x8 or 1 x8 + 2 x4 PCIe 3.0 |
1 x16 or 2 x8 PCIe 3.0 |
1 x16 PCIe 3.0 | ||
| Processor Graphics Support | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | ||
| Intel SRT (SSD caching) | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | ||
| RAID Support | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| USB 2.0 Ports (3.0) | 14 (4) | 14 (4) | 14 (4) | 14 | 14 | 14 | ||
| SATA Total (Max Number of 6Gbps Ports) | 6 (2) | 6 (2) | 6 (2) | 6 (2) | 6 (2) | 6 (2) | ||
| PCIe Lanes | 8 (5GT/s) | 8 (5GT/s) | 8 (5GT/s) | 8 (5GT/s) | 8 (5GT/s) | 8 (5GT/s) | ||
The big change this year is that all 7-series chipsets support processor graphics, while last year Intel had the silly P vs. H split until Z68 arrived and simplified everything.
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taltamir - Monday, March 12, 2012 - link
Rarson is correct.He isn't suggesting no IGP at all. He is saying put a good IGP on the lower end.
While there ARE people who need a powerful CPU and will not get a video card because they don't play games, those people do not in any way benefit from having a higher end IGP.
High end gamers = discreete GPU + Powerful CPU
Budget gamers = IGP + mid-low range CPU
Non gamers with money = High end CPU + IGP (underused)
Non gamers on a budget = Mid-low range CPU + IGP (underused)
The only people who need a more powerful GPU are the budget gamers and thus it makes sense on the lower end CPUs to have a more powerful IGP.
Urillusion17 - Monday, March 12, 2012 - link
Great article but.... where are the temps??? The few benches I have seen don't mention overclocking, and if they do, they do not mention temps. I am hearing this chip can boil water! I would think that would be as important as anything else...DrWattsOn - Tuesday, March 13, 2012 - link
+1 (very much in agreement)boogerlad - Wednesday, March 14, 2012 - link
is it possible to fully load the igp with an opencl application, and not affect the cpu performance at all? From what I've read, it appears the igp shares the cache with the cpu, so will that affect performance?rocker123 - Monday, March 19, 2012 - link
Generational performance improvements on the CPU side generally fall in the 20 - 40% range. As you've just seen, Ivy Bridge offers a 7 - 15% increase in CPU performance over Sandy Bridge - making it a bonafide tick from a CPU perspectiveShould be :Generational performance improvements on the GPU side generally fall in the 20 - 40% range
rocker123 - Monday, March 19, 2012 - link
Generational performance improvements on the CPU side generally fall in the 20 - 40% range. As you've just seen, Ivy Bridge offers a 7 - 15% increase in CPU performance over Sandy Bridge - making it a bonafide tick from a CPU perspectiveShould be :Generational performance improvements on the GPU side generally fall in the 20 - 40% range
tipoo - Monday, March 19, 2012 - link
They give the drivers their own tweaks and bug fixes, but I doubt they could do something like add T&L without the manufacturers support. In fact, they didn't, unless they have bigger driver teams now.ClagMaster - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link
"Personally, I want more and I suspect that Haswell will deliver much of that. It is worth pointing out that Intel is progressing at a faster rate than the discrete GPU industry at this point. Admittedly the gap is downright huge, but from what I've heard even the significant gains we're seeing here with Ivy will pale in comparison to what Haswell provides."Personally, I believe on-board graphics will never be on par with a dedicated graphics part. And it is obcessive-compulsive ridiculous to compare the performance of the HD4000 with discrete graphics and complain its not as good.
The HD4000 is meant for providing graphics for business and multi-media computers. And for that purpose it is outstanding.
If you want gaming or engineering workstation performance, get a discrete graphics card. And stop angsting about how bad onboard graphics is to discrete graphics.
pottermd - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Today's desktop processors are more than fast enough to do professional level 3D rendering at home.The article contained this statement. It's not really true. I've had a long nap and the render I'm doing is still running. :)
Dracusis - Friday, April 6, 2012 - link
"The people who need integrated graphics"No one *needs* integrated graphics. But not everyone needs discrete graphics. The higher performance an IGP has, the less people overall will *need* DGPs.
Not all games need dedicated graphics cards, just the multi million dollar re-hashed COD's that choke retail stores. There are literally thousands of other games around that only require a small amount of graphics processing power. Flash now has 3D accelerated content and almost every developer using it will target IGP performance levels. Almost all casual game developers target IGPs as well, they're not selling to COD players. Sure, most of those games won't need a hight end CPU as well, but people don't buy computers to play casual games, they buy them for a massive range of tasks, the vast majority of which will be CPU bound so faster would be better.
Also, as an indie game developer I hit performance walls with CPUs more often than I do with GPUs. You can always scale back geometry/triangle counts, trim or cut certain visual effects but cutting back on CPU related overheads generally means you're cutting out gameplay.